Many times I read threads on coins that pertain to errors, die cracks, etc. and I have realized I view them different, when I see these marks or errors on coins I,ve brought to carve I usually say '' oh no '' because after carving coins for 14 years, most of the time it,s foreign material in the coin..War nickels are the number one coin for foreign material, most of the time I,ll go ahead and try to carve one, but most of the time when I get to the spot where a line or error is the foreign material pops out and leaves a very deep void which can appear as a hole or a line..I would have never knew about foreign material in coins if my hobby hadn,t been carving coins..About 1 in 50 buffalo nickels have foreign material, about 1 in 5 war nickels have foreign material..The only coin I haven,t found foreign material in is a penny [ one cent ]..By all means don,t think I,m saying there is not die cracks, error, etc. in coins....Here is a 1942-s nickel I just finished, look at the area in GO in GOD and you,ll see a piece of foreign material ready to pop out.Before I started to carve this coin there was a raised line running from under the eye to the area of GO in GOD, when I started carving it what started as a crooked line just poped out leaving a void in coin, If I waNted to I could take my fingernail and pop the foreign material out in the GO area of GOD.
Interesting. I do love your work. I do tend to see lots of lamination errors on coins of that era, but I haven't come across a lot of foreign material in the planchets. Thanks for sharing!
Interesting, I have asked before about that sort of problem. Working with steel, brass and aluminum mainly there have been times when we received steel with foreign material in it, one time some quarter inch plate looked like it had part of a tin can sticking out of it. I think it has to do with poor quality control.
